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| David Cameron's interviews and Lords reform: Politics live blog | David Cameron's interviews and Lords reform: Politics live blog |
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| 8.00am: We'll be hearing a lot from David Cameron today. He is on the Today programme at 8.10, he has got other interviews lined up and he is giving a campaign speech in Bristol. Inevitably, it's being billed by Labour as a relaunch. In Bristol, he is going to urge people in the cities with a referendum on whether to have an elected mayor to vote for the proposal. | |
| />It's a once-in-a-generation chance to change the way our country is run. I passionately want those cities – from Bristol to Birmingham, Nottingham to Newcastle, Sheffield to Wakefield – to give a resounding, emphatic yes next week. | |
| But, with the joint committee on the draft House of Lords reform bill publishing its report this morning, and the Tories at war over the plans, he may spend more time in his interviews talking about that. | |
| Here's the agenda for the day. | |
| 10am: Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, gives a speech to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. As Nicholas Watt reports, Alexander will say Whitehall departments will face tough new spending rules because the Treasury wants to ensure there can be no repeat of the "mess" that landed Britain with its largest fiscal deficit in peacetime. | |
| 10am: The joint committee on on the draft Lords reform bill publishes its report. As the Guardian reports, it will call for Lords reporm to be put to the voters in a referendum. Lord Richard, the committee chairman, holds a press conference at 11am. | |
| 10.45am: The McKay Commission on the West Lothian Question is holding a public evidence session. | |
| 11.30am: Aidan Barclay, chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of the companies that run the Independent and the Evening Standard, and John Ryley, head of Sky News, give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. | |
| 11.40am: A cross-party group of MPs calling for an elected Lords hold a press conference. | |
| As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm. | |
| If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow. | |
| And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog. | |
| 8.10am: John Humphrys is doing the interview. He says it's worrying when a government starts to look incompetent. /> />Q: Are you worried? | |
| Cameron says he wants the government to do better. But the "big picture" is what really matters. The government came together "on an economic rescue mission". But they are not just hard-edged accountants. They want to make Britain better for "hard-working people who do the right thing". And they want to make it more pro-enterprise. | |
| Cameron says he wants the government to raise its game. | |
| Q: But the omnishambles phrase, and the other problems, suggest you are not running the country well. You made a mess over Abu Qatada. | |
| Cameron picks up Humphrys' point about the fuel strike. The last government had a plan that would allow the miltary to provide 10% of the nation's fuel supplies. Now it could supply 50 to 60%. But he says he accepts the need to learn lessons around communication. /> />Q: Why did you not wait 24 hours before arresting Abu Qatada. | |
| Cameron says the Home Office was very clear that it had the right day. It checked. The case law was also clear. | |
| Q: But did the Home Office check? | |
| Cameron said it had checked with the court. | |
| Q: What were you told? | |
| Cameron says the Home Office believed, and checked during the process .... | |
| Q: What were they told? | |
| They were told the deadline expired on the Monday night, Cameron says. | |
| The key point is, was the government right to move as quickly as possible. | |
| Q: But why did they not wait another 24 hours? It was because you wanted to make a splash. | |
| No, says Cameron. It was because they wanted to move as quickly as possible. | |
| 8.16am: They are still talking about Abu Qatada. Cameron says that, in his view, the Home Office, acted entirely correctly. | |
| Q: In the past you said "we're all in it together". | |
| Yes, says Cameron. He does believe we're all in it together. And he thinks the government is acting fairly. The richest 10% are paying 10 times as much as the poorest 10%. | |
| Q: What do you mean by aggressive tax avoidance? {He cites a case that sounds similar to Philip Green.] | |
| Camerons says there is a form of aggressive tax avoidance that is wrong. | |
| Q: But what about this case? [Without naming Green, Humphrys says Cameron recruited him to advise the government.] | |
| Cameron says he is not getting into this individual case. | |
| Q: But what about that sort of thing. /> />Yes, that sort of thing, says Cameron. [He seems to be criticising Green.] | |
| Q: But you gave him a job. | |
| Cameron names Green for the first time. He was asked to advise the government, he says. But he won't discuss his tax affairs. He says setting up a company specifically to avoid tax would be unacceptable. | |
| The government has given the Revenue extra money to target tax evasion, he says. | |
| Q: And you invite these people for dinner? | |
| Everyone should pay their taxes, says Cameron. He again says he does not want to comment on individuals. | |
| Q: What about generally? | |
| Generally speaking, that's sensible, Cameron says. | |
| 8.22am: They are now on Lords reform. | |
| Cameron says he has always been in favour of Lords reform. All three main parties proposed it in their manifestos. | |
| Q: And there should be a referendum, shouldn't there? | |
| Cameron says he would not rule it out of hand. The committee today will call for one. But there is a strong case against, because the main parties included it in their manifestos. | |
| Q: What's your personal view? | |
| Cameron says he personally does not see the case for a referendum as a strong one. /> />Q: But you are having referendums for city mayors? | |
| That's because in these cities the establishment is often against mayors. The only way to get mayors is to appeal to the public over the heads of local politicians. | |
| Having an elected Lords is a sensible change. But it will only go ahead if the parties work together, he says. | |
| 8.25am: Humphrys changes subject. | |
| Q: Are you too relaxed as prime minister? | |
| It's a very hard job, says Cameron. He is normally at work at his kitchen table at 5.45am. | |
| He says he is fighting for people who deserve a better deal. | |
| Q: Can you have a normal life? | |
| Cameron says he tries to spend time with his wife. Having dinner with his wife is what he means by a "date night", he says. /> />Q: One of your colleagues said you put the school run above the national interest? | |
| Cameron says he does sometimes take his children to school. It is possible to be prime minister and a father, he says. | |
| Being prime minister is about taking decisions. You can't get them all right. But voters want to know that your average does not fall too low. | |
| If prime ministers are too tired, they won't take the right decisions. /> />Q: Do you really want children to stand up when adults enter the room? | |
| Cameron says he was talking about school when he made that point. | |
| Q: Do you get members of your cabinet to stand up when you enter room? | |
| No, says Cameron. He jokes about what would happen if he tried it. | |
| 8.30am: Nick Robinson is giving his gloss on the interview. But Cameron is still in the studio. He repeats his point about not seeing the case for a referendum on Lords reform. Lords reform will only happen if all the parties cooperate, he says. | |
| Robinson says Cameron seems to be saying that he doesn't want a referendum, but that he will have one if necessary. | |
| Previously when Cameron has been on the programme he has picked some racing tips. But this time he doesn't. James Naughtie says Cameron isn't being asked because his tips were so poor last time. But perhaps all the jibes about being a dilettante prime minister (which were covered in the interview) have got to him. | |
| 8.35am: I'll summarise the key points from the interview in a moment. But the Guardian's Patrick Wintour and the Daily Mail's James Chapman have both picked up the key point. | |
| Here's Patrick Wintour. | |
| David cameron "We will only get lords reform if we all behave like reasonable rational and sensible people"so zero chance | |
| — Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) April 23, 2012 | |
| And here's James Chapman. | |
| David Cameron: Lords reform will only happen if MPs on all sides behave in 'grown up' fashion. That's the end of that, then | |
| — James Chapman (Mail) (@jameschappers) April 23, 2012 | |
• The spokesman declined to elaborate on what Cameron meant when he told the Today programme he would would not entertain people who practiced aggressive tax avoidance. (See 8.43am.) But the spokesman said aggressive tax avoidance involved schemes that contradicted "the spirit or the intention of the law" because they were set up "with the intention of avoiding tax". | |
• Ed Ball in the Financial Times (subscription) says the government is making the governor of the Bank of England's job impossible. | |
• James Forsyth at Coffee House says the most important part of the interview was the section on Lords reform. | |
• Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome posts a summary of the interview. He says David Cameron is attempting to "restate" rather than relaunch his Government's purpose. | |
| 8.43am: After all the headlines about "omnishambles", it is easy to forget that David Cameron is still about the best communicator at the top of British politics. He gave a good illustration on the Today programme this morning. | 8.43am: After all the headlines about "omnishambles", it is easy to forget that David Cameron is still about the best communicator at the top of British politics. He gave a good illustration on the Today programme this morning. |
| First, without saying anything at face value particularly radical, he gently recalibrated the government's stance on Lords reform. It will only happen if all the parties agree to work "rationally, reasonably, sensibly", he said. This sounds uncontentious, but it means a) that a referendum is much more likely, because Labour are insisting upon one and b) that Cameron seems to be accepting that reform itself may never happen, because the cross-party consensus he wants to achieve may prove impossible to find. | First, without saying anything at face value particularly radical, he gently recalibrated the government's stance on Lords reform. It will only happen if all the parties agree to work "rationally, reasonably, sensibly", he said. This sounds uncontentious, but it means a) that a referendum is much more likely, because Labour are insisting upon one and b) that Cameron seems to be accepting that reform itself may never happen, because the cross-party consensus he wants to achieve may prove impossible to find. |
| Second, on a personal level, he addressed rather well the claim that he is not on top of the job. You may not find the idea that being prime minister is all about keeping your good-decision batting average reasonable high a very profound description of the constitutional duties that the job entails, but I can imagine it making sense to some listeners. And that's because, third, he just sounded genuinely calm and good-humoured throughout. That doesn't make him right. But generally it's better to sound calm than tetchy. | Second, on a personal level, he addressed rather well the claim that he is not on top of the job. You may not find the idea that being prime minister is all about keeping your good-decision batting average reasonable high a very profound description of the constitutional duties that the job entails, but I can imagine it making sense to some listeners. And that's because, third, he just sounded genuinely calm and good-humoured throughout. That doesn't make him right. But generally it's better to sound calm than tetchy. |
| Here are the main points. | Here are the main points. |
| • Cameron said that Lords reform would only happen by cross-party agreement. | • Cameron said that Lords reform would only happen by cross-party agreement. |
| One of the reasons why Lords reform never goes ahead is although there's actually a majority for it in the Commons, and the three main political parties are in favour of it, all the parties are split on it. That is the fact. So the only way it can ever happen is if actually all the parties agree to work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly on trying to deliver what I think the British public would see as not a priority, but a perfectly sensible reform that we have people legislating in the House of Lords who are elected by the people. | One of the reasons why Lords reform never goes ahead is although there's actually a majority for it in the Commons, and the three main political parties are in favour of it, all the parties are split on it. That is the fact. So the only way it can ever happen is if actually all the parties agree to work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly on trying to deliver what I think the British public would see as not a priority, but a perfectly sensible reform that we have people legislating in the House of Lords who are elected by the people. |
| He said that he was personally in favour of Lords reform. | He said that he was personally in favour of Lords reform. |
| I'm in favour of reform of the House of Lords. I've always thought that getting an elected element into the House of Lords would actually strengthen our parliament and strengthen the House of Lords and I think it is the right thing to do. | I'm in favour of reform of the House of Lords. I've always thought that getting an elected element into the House of Lords would actually strengthen our parliament and strengthen the House of Lords and I think it is the right thing to do. |
| But his comments about Lords reform only happen "if actually all the parties agree to work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly" suggest that he is unwilling to use the government's majority to bulldoze the plans through parliament. As well as opening the door for a referendum, he may well this morning have killed Lords reform for another generation. | But his comments about Lords reform only happen "if actually all the parties agree to work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly" suggest that he is unwilling to use the government's majority to bulldoze the plans through parliament. As well as opening the door for a referendum, he may well this morning have killed Lords reform for another generation. |
| • He indicated that he would not block a referendum on Lords reform. He said that he was not persuaded of the need for one. | • He indicated that he would not block a referendum on Lords reform. He said that he was not persuaded of the need for one. |
| There is quite a strong case against a referendum, which is that it would cost a lot of money, and as all three parties said they were in favour of a mainly elected House of Lords, it does not strike me as an incredibly powerful argument. | There is quite a strong case against a referendum, which is that it would cost a lot of money, and as all three parties said they were in favour of a mainly elected House of Lords, it does not strike me as an incredibly powerful argument. |
| But he did not rule one out, and he sounded less opposed to a referendum than Nick Clegg has been in his comments on this subject. Cameron actually hinted that the government could concede a referendum as the bill goes through parliament. | But he did not rule one out, and he sounded less opposed to a referendum than Nick Clegg has been in his comments on this subject. Cameron actually hinted that the government could concede a referendum as the bill goes through parliament. |
| We live in a democracy. Parliament is going to debate and discuss this. | We live in a democracy. Parliament is going to debate and discuss this. |
| • He said he would not entertain people who practiced aggressive tax avoidance. John Humphrys asked him about Philip Green, the Topshop billionaire who (legally) avoided tax when his company paid a £1.2bn dividend to his wife, who lives in Monaco. Cameron repeatedly said it would be wrong to comment on an individual. But, at the end of this part of the interview, he did suggest he would shun some tax avoiders. Here's the exchange. | • He said he would not entertain people who practiced aggressive tax avoidance. John Humphrys asked him about Philip Green, the Topshop billionaire who (legally) avoided tax when his company paid a £1.2bn dividend to his wife, who lives in Monaco. Cameron repeatedly said it would be wrong to comment on an individual. But, at the end of this part of the interview, he did suggest he would shun some tax avoiders. Here's the exchange. |
| Q: All right, forget about that particular case, forget it completely, all I'm saying to you is, [following on from] what George Osborne said in that budget, and the strength of the language that he used, will you make sure from now on that you will not have dealings with people who behave like that, generally.? | Q: All right, forget about that particular case, forget it completely, all I'm saying to you is, [following on from] what George Osborne said in that budget, and the strength of the language that he used, will you make sure from now on that you will not have dealings with people who behave like that, generally.? |
| A: Generally speaking, yes I think that's sensible. | A: Generally speaking, yes I think that's sensible. |
| • Cameron said the Home Office were told by the European court of human rights that the deadline for Abu Qatada to lodge an appeal expired last Monday night. In a sign that he is not blaming Theresa May or the Home Office for what went wrong, he said that Home Office acted in his view "entirely correctly". | • Cameron said the Home Office were told by the European court of human rights that the deadline for Abu Qatada to lodge an appeal expired last Monday night. In a sign that he is not blaming Theresa May or the Home Office for what went wrong, he said that Home Office acted in his view "entirely correctly". |
| • He said soldiers could now provide more than half the nation with fuel in the event of a strike because the government had improved its emergency planning. The government inherited a plan that would allow the military to provide 10% of the nation's fuel supplies, he said. "What has happened in terms of policies and action is that we now have the ability to provide 50, 60% - perhaps more – of the nation's fuel supplies because we have taken the right tough, long-term difficult decisions to get the military more involved." | • He said soldiers could now provide more than half the nation with fuel in the event of a strike because the government had improved its emergency planning. The government inherited a plan that would allow the military to provide 10% of the nation's fuel supplies, he said. "What has happened in terms of policies and action is that we now have the ability to provide 50, 60% - perhaps more – of the nation's fuel supplies because we have taken the right tough, long-term difficult decisions to get the military more involved." |
| • He accepted that the goverment made mistakes when it urged people to stockpile fuel. He said the government had to "learn lessons in terms of communication" from what happened when the fuel panic occured before Easter. | • He accepted that the goverment made mistakes when it urged people to stockpile fuel. He said the government had to "learn lessons in terms of communication" from what happened when the fuel panic occured before Easter. |
| • He rejected claims that he did not work hard enough as prime minister. This is a charge that has been repeatedly levelled against Cameron by commentators like Max Hastings (suscription) and Anthony King, who labelled Cameron a "dilettante" prime minister in the Financial Times (subscription). Cameron said he worked hard. | • He rejected claims that he did not work hard enough as prime minister. This is a charge that has been repeatedly levelled against Cameron by commentators like Max Hastings (suscription) and Anthony King, who labelled Cameron a "dilettante" prime minister in the Financial Times (subscription). Cameron said he worked hard. |
It is extremely hard work. I work very, very hard at it. I am normally at my kitchen table at a quarter to six in the morning going through my boxes and papers. | It is extremely hard work. I work very, very hard at it. I am normally at my kitchen table at a quarter to six in the morning going through my boxes and papers. |
| Humphrys asked him about a comment from an anonymous Tory MP quoted in an FT profile (subscription) who said: "Frankly, he is putting the school run ahead of the national interest." Cameron replied: | Humphrys asked him about a comment from an anonymous Tory MP quoted in an FT profile (subscription) who said: "Frankly, he is putting the school run ahead of the national interest." Cameron replied: |
| Maybe once a week, sometimes once a fortnight, tragically sometimes once a month, I manage to take my children to school. But it's got to be possible to be a decent husband, a good father and a good prime minister at the same time. If it isn't possible, then there's something wrong. | Maybe once a week, sometimes once a fortnight, tragically sometimes once a month, I manage to take my children to school. But it's got to be possible to be a decent husband, a good father and a good prime minister at the same time. If it isn't possible, then there's something wrong. |
| Actually, I would go further than that. The big thing you have to do as prime minister is make a lot of judment calls and decisions. The British public are incredibly fair minded. They know that you will get, hopefully, a lot of them right. They know you will get some of them wrong. What they want to know is that your average doesn't fall too low. I completely understand that. | Actually, I would go further than that. The big thing you have to do as prime minister is make a lot of judment calls and decisions. The British public are incredibly fair minded. They know that you will get, hopefully, a lot of them right. They know you will get some of them wrong. What they want to know is that your average doesn't fall too low. I completely understand that. |
| But if you are completely fried and exhausted and have no time for your family and never go for a jog or play a game of tennis or whatever, if you never do those things, you will get into a situation where you will make very bad judgments because you will be exhausted and stressed and all the rest of it. | But if you are completely fried and exhausted and have no time for your family and never go for a jog or play a game of tennis or whatever, if you never do those things, you will get into a situation where you will make very bad judgments because you will be exhausted and stressed and all the rest of it. |
| • Cameron said that he does not expect children to stand up when their parents walk into the room at home. The remarks he made about this last week were misinterpeted, he said. He was talking about wanting children to stand up when teachers come into the room at school • He said the government needed to raise its game. "You have difficult weeks and difficult months," he said. "I want us to raise our game and do better, but the vision and the long-term is what matters. | • Cameron said that he does not expect children to stand up when their parents walk into the room at home. The remarks he made about this last week were misinterpeted, he said. He was talking about wanting children to stand up when teachers come into the room at school • He said the government needed to raise its game. "You have difficult weeks and difficult months," he said. "I want us to raise our game and do better, but the vision and the long-term is what matters. |
| I've taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome. | I've taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome. |
| 9.57am: And here is some more reaction to and comment on the David Cameron interview. | |
| • Steve Richards on Twitter on Cameron's media skills. | |
| Cameron is a Blair-like master of the interview-calm, uses humour, treats it as a conversation. For some reason v.few can do it. | |
| — steve richards (@steverichards14) April 23, 2012 | |
| • Labour's Chris Bryant thinks Cameron was hypocritical on tax. | |
| So today Cameron won't comment on someone's tax affairs on air. Last Wednesday I recall that's all he wanted to talk about. #justsaying | |
| — Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) April 23, 2012 | |
| />• James Forsyth at Coffee House says the most important part of the interview was the section on Lords reform. | |
| Perhaps the most politically significant part of the interview was on Lords reform. Cameron kept stressing that it would 'only ever happen if all the parties work together on it'. To my ears, this sounded like Cameron saying that if Labour won't play ball then he won't try and push it through. He also sounded far more open to a referendum than Clegg did on the Sunday Politics, saying that the coalition 'shouldn't rule a referendum out of hand.' | |
| • Paul Waugh at PoliticsHome says David Cameron is on a rescue mission. | |
| The PM has launched a veritable media blitz today, appearing on the Today prog and being tailed by Nick Robinson for one of his 'day in the life' specials for the BBC 10 O'Clock News tonight. | |
| Labour's Michael Dugher has dubbed this a 'relaunch' (though some would say that as an ex member of the Brown bunker, Dugher would know all about that) of the Coaltion. Downing Street would prefer to call it a Fightback, I suspect. | |
| Either way, it certainly feels like a 'rescue mission' (the PM's own phrase for his determination on the deficit) for the Tories' local election fortunes. | |
| />• Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome posts a summary of the interview. He says David Cameron is attempting to "restate" rather than relaunch his Government's purpose. | |
| • The BBC's Robert Peston on Twitter. | |
| Is it significant that Cameron agreed with JH on #R4Today that it would be "sensible" NOT to have "dealings" with aggressive tax avoiders? | |
| — Robert Peston (@Peston) April 23, 2012 | |
| • And the Guardian's Polly Curtis on Twitter, who is trying to answer the question. | |
| Trying to work out which friends Cameron just lost by agreeing not to meet with people who aggressively avoid taxes | |
| — polly curtis (@pollycurtis) April 23, 2012 | |
| • Glenys Kinnock on Twitter on Cameron's call for children to stand up for their teachers. | |
| Cameron says pupils should stand when teachers come in . Is that what he means by 'our children soaring?'@BBCr4today | |
| — Glenys Kinnock (@GlenysKinnock) April 23, 2012 | |
| 10.27am: The joint committee on the draft House of Lords reform bill has just published its report. Here's a comment from Lord Richard, the committee chairman. | |
| We have undertaken a thorough and detailed analysis of the proposals put forward in the government's draft bill. The committee decided, on a majority, that they agreed that a reformed House of Lords should have a democratic mandate and that the division between elected and unelected members should be an 80%/20% split. | |
| We also made a range of other recommendations in areas – particularly those relating to transitional arrangements – where we felt the proposals might be improved. It is now for the government to consider our proposals before coming forward with a final bill which it can present to parliament for further scrutiny. | |
| 10.30am: If you've got a question for David Cameron, tweet Nick Robinson. | |
| On tour with Cameron. He clearly leaving door open to referendum on Lords reform. Interview later - any questions? Other leaders to follow | |
| — Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) April 23, 2012 | |
| 10.51am: You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's paper, are here. | |
| As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. | |
| • Mary Ann Seighart in the Independent says David Cameron and Nick Clegg should abandon full Lords reform. | |
| If Clegg and Cameron were realistic, they would concede now that Lords reform has little chance of coming into force. If it isn't voted down in the Commons by a coalition of backbench Tories and Labour (who can oppose the Bill on the ground that it doesn't offer a referendum), then it will certainly be defeated in the Lords. The Commons could then only push it through by using the Parliament Act. That would require another Commons vote, which would be unlikely to pass ... | |
| Here is a solution, which would be better for both parties. Allow peers to be elected by their peers, to shrink the size of the House and weed out the doddery and the lazy. Chuck out any with criminal records. Reduce the patronage power of party leaders. Make the hereditaries compete for places with other peers. Then Clegg can say that he has reformed the House of Lords – and he and Cameron can get on with running the country. | |
| • Jim Pickard and Helen Warrell in the Financial Times (subscription) say the government will not give peers who leave the Lords a pay off. | |
| The Tory minister in charge of a bill on reforming the House of Lords has said there will be no pay-offs for departing peers. | |
| Speaking ahead of a report due on Monday from the joint committee on revamping the upper chamber, Mark Harper, the minister for constitutional reform, poured scorn on proposals from Lord Steel, former leader of the Liberal party, that lords should receive pay-offs of up to £30,000. | |
| "At a time of austerity . . . the public would think that was bizarre," Mr Harper said in an interview with the Financial Times. | |
| /> />• Ed Ball in the Financial Times (subscription) says the government is making the governor of the Bank of England's job impossible. | |
| Wanted, a new governor of the Bank of England. Only superhumans need apply. Because, as things stand, I fear he or she will face a near-impossible task. | |
| Being governor was a tough job even before the bank was made independent in 1997, when the power to set interest rates was handed to the Monetary Policy Committee. Sir Mervyn King's successor will, however, assume leadership of a massively enlarged central bank, at a time of economic stress, with new, onerous and complex responsibilities in prudential and consumer regulation as well as its role in monetary policy and financial stability ... | |
| It is quite possibly an impossible job. In my view, it is made all the harder by the flaws in the Bank of England reform bill, which parliament debates today. There are three things the government can do now that will give the new governor at least a better chance of success. | |
| I'm off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I'll post again after 11.30am. | |
| 11.52am: That went on a bit. Sparrow's law says the length of a Whitehall briefing is in inverse proportion to the amount of interesting news it contains. If I can recover the will to live, I'll post a summary. | |
| 11.55am: Here are the main points from today's Numher 10 lobby briefing. | |
| • Downing Street has renewed speculation that the Home Office did not check properly with the European court of human rights the proper deadline of Abu Qatada submitting an appeal. Last week Theresa May, the home secretary, dodged questions 14 times about whether the Home Office had been told that there was some doubt about whether Monday was the proper deadline. In his Today programme interview this morning, David Cameron said the Home Office did check with the ECHR. | |
| That is something they had checked with the [European] Court. I discussed this issue with the Home Secretary, and she set out the application in huge detail. The case was this. The Home Office believed – and checked during the process – that the date expired on the Monday night. They were told throughout the deadline expired on the Monday night. | |
| But when journalists pressed the prime minister's spokesman at the briefing for details of what the ECHR told the Home Office, the spokesman was more opaque than Cameron had been. The spokesman refused to say explicitly that the ECHR told the Home Office that the deadline was Monday night. Instead he said that there were "a number of reasons why we took the view that the court deadline was Monday"". One was the treaty itself, another was precedent, and the third was information gleaned from "contact with officials at the European court". | |
| Maybe the spokesman was just sticking to a particularly narrow brief. But the exchanges gave the impression that there may have been some kind of misunderstanding, and that the Home Office did not obtain a categoricial ruling from a senior offcial at the ECHR that the deadline was Monday night. | |
| • The spokesman sidestepped questions about Cameron's reaction to the report saying the ECHR encouraged Qatada's lawyers to submit an appeal before the Tuesday deadline. "It is not at all surprising that his lawyers are trying to delay the deportation," the spokesman said. | |
| • The spokesman said the government would consider today's report from the joint committee on the draft House of Lords reform bill properly before issuing a formal response. /> />• The spokesman declined to elaborate on what Cameron meant when he told the Today programme he would would not entertain people who practiced aggressive tax avoidance. (See 8.43am.) But the spokesman said aggressive tax avoidance involved schemes that contradicted "the spirit or the intention of the law" because they were set up "with the intention of avoiding tax". | |
| • George Osborne will make a statement in the Commons this afternoon on the government's decision to contribute another £10bn to the IMF. | |
| • The flag of St George is flying above Number 10 today to mark St George's Day. | |
| • Cameron has not met François Hollande, the Socialist candidate who won the first round of the French presidential election, the prime minister's spokesman said. He said Cameron did not meet Hollande when he visited London recently because it was not normally for the prime minister to meet candidates in foreign elections. | |
| • James Paice, the environment minister, has published a consultation on dealing with dangerous dogs. Among other things, it proposes compulsory microchipping. | |
| 12.35pm: A YouGov poll for the Evening Standard has cut Boris Johnson's lead in the London mayoral contest to 2 points. | |
| Here are their figures for first-preference votes. | |
| Boris Johnson: 43% (down 2 points from last week) />Ken Livingstone: 41% (up 1) />Brian Paddick: 8% (up 1) | |
| And here are the figures for the final round, once other candidates are eliminated. | |
| Johnson: 51% />Livingstone: 49% | |
| Anthony Wells has posted an analysis of his figures on his UK Polling Report blog. Here's an extract. | |
| The changes are within the margin of error, so I'll add my normal caveat about not reading too much into it. That said, if the narrowing is genuine, why might it be? Looking at the rest of the trackers, Ken really hasn't made much progress since last week. The percentage of people thinking he did a good job as Mayor is down, the percentage thinking he did a better job than Boris is down, he is down across the board on the question about each candidates's qualities. Most of the changes are not significant in themselves, but the increase in voting support isn't mirrored by an increase in his other figures. My guess, therefore, is that the narrowing of the polls is Ken gaining from the rising national tide of Labour support and the coalition government's troubles, rather than any improvement in the public's perception of him personally. | |
| 1.30pm: Here's a lunchtime summary. | |
| • David Cameron has hinted that he is unwilling to use the government's majority to bulldoze Lords reform through parliament. He made the suggestion in an interview that coincided with the publication of a long-awaited report from a committee of MPs and peers on Lords reform. Cameron said: "The only way [Lords reform] can ever happen is if actually all the parties agree to work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly on trying to deliver what I think the British public would see as not a priority." But the joint committee reported illustrated that there is no consensus on Lords reform. The report said that the Lords should have an electoral mandate, but this was not a unanimous conclusion. It was agreed by a majority of 13 to 9. A minority faction from the committee published its own report entitled House of Lord Reform: An Alternative Way Forward. Critics would argue that the title is misleading, because the authors seem opposed to substantial reform. Cameron made his comments in a wide-ranging interview on the Today programme that also covered Abu Qatada, aggressive tax avoidance, the fuel protests and whether or not Cameron too lazy to be prime minister. (See 8.43am.) | |
| • Nadine Dorries, the Tory backbencher, has described Cameron and George Osborne as "two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others and that is their real crime". She made the comment in an interview for the BBC's Daily Politics programme. | |
| There is a very tight, narrow clique of a certain group of people and what they do is they act as a barrier and prevent Cameron and Osborne and other from actually really understanding and knowing what's happening in the rest of the country. | |
| Unfortunately I think that not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don't know the price of milk, but they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others and that is their real crime. | |
| You can watch the clip here, on the BBC website. | |
| (Cameron may be regretting his joke about Dorries being "frustrated".) /> />• A YouGov poll has come out suggesting that London mayoral contest is now neck and neck. It gives Boris Johnson a lead over Ken Livingstone of just two points. (See 12.35pm.) As my colleague Patrick Wintour says, Johnson has particularly lost support with women, where he used to have a massive lead. Last night, in a BBC debate, Johnson said that he would consider cutting transport fares if re-elected, having previously said that fare cuts would damage investment. | |
| • Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has announced new spending controls for Whitehall departments. | |
| />Delegated responsibility for spending cannot be an excuse to hide information, close the books, or weaken financial management. For too long financial management in Government has been stifled by poor information sharing and poor incentives. That has to change. From now on, all departments must monitor and share spending information with the Treasury on a monthly basis. And that data must be consistent. | |
| The full text of the speech is on the Treasury website. | |
| • David Cameron has welcomed the EU's decsion to suspend, but not remove, sanctions against Burma. As the Press Association reports, he was speaking after William Hague and fellow EU foreign ministers formally took the decision in Luxembourg, suspending trade and aid sanctions which have isolated Burma for years, but retaining a long-standing arms embargo. | |
| • John Ryley, head of Sky News, has told the Leveson inquiry that may be occasions when journalists have to consider breaking the law to "shed light" on wrongdoing. | |
| • Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has Britain will work with the US to develop "floating" wind turbines to harness more offshore wind power at a potentially lower cost. | |
| • Brodie Clark, the former head of the UK Border Agency, has said that full passport checks introduced by Theresa May, the home secretary, are causing lengthy delays at London's major airports and undermining security. • Boris Johnson has been accused of doing "virtually nothing" to tackle rising serious youth violence in four years by the former senior London government officer who drew up the mayor's initial proposals for addressing the issue. | |
| 2.18pm: Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, is still on the warpath over Carry on Qatada. Here's an extract from her latest statement. | |
The prime minister and home secretary need to stop covering up the events leading to last week's Abu Qatada shambles. | |
| The prime minister suggested this morning that the Home Office had checked with the European court and knew there were differences of opinion over the deadline for appeals in the Qatada case. Why then did they decide to take the risk and act 24 hours early? Who decided that they should? And when was Number 10 informed of the decision and the risks involved? | |
| It is clearly a serious problem for the Home Office if the home secretary and the prime minister were given wrong advice or kept in the dark about something with national security implications like this. | |
| But if ministers were told there were risks or a difference of view with the courts and they ploughed on regardless, that would be an extremely serious failure of judgement by the home secretary. | |
| 2.45pm: Sadiq Khan (pictured), the shadow justice secretary, has issued Labour's response to the report from the joint committee on the draft House of Lords bill. Here it is in full. | |
| We welcome the publication of the joint committee's report on the Tory-led government's proposed reforms of the House of Lords. I'm heartened that they agree with Labour that major constitutional change such as this should be put to the public in a referendum, and that the powers of the revised chambers need to be clarified. It's also right, as the report recommends, that the relationship between the Commons and any new second chamber is codified. The proposals as currently stand risk total gridlock in the way we are governed, something pro-reformers of all political colours will want to avoid. | |
| Labour supports a reformed House of Lords, through the creation of a wholly elected second chamber, with clearly identified powers, a relationship between both chambers which is codified and that upholds the primacy of the Commons, then put to the people in a referendum. | |
| We look forward to the response of the deputy prime Mminister to today's report, and hope he will adopt Labour's approach to major constitutional change of seeking political consensus before proceeding further. He should also take on board the prime minister's comments this morning that leave the door open for the government to fall into line, and hold a referendum. | |
| 3.01pm: Given the fact that the Financial Times were reporting last week that ministers expect just three of the 10 cities holding referendums on whether to have directly elected mayors to vote yes (subscription), David Cameron's speech this afternoon is rather bold. He's in Bristol and he has devoted a whole speech to making the case for elected mayors. He did not have anything new to say in policy terms. But he argued that cities like Bristol would benefit from having a high-profile local champion. | |
| Here's an excerpt. | |
Frankly nothing we do in Westminster – no policy we pass or investment we make – can compete with having one energetic champion on the ground, whose round-the-clock, unrelenting focus is on seeing their city succeed. | |
| So our dream is to have real heavyweight, influential figures in the North, the Midlands and the West, ones who can give their city a distinctive identity, who can fight their corner, and who will help rebalance our country. | |
| Now there are some people in Westminster who don't like this very much. | |
| They say – watch out, or this is going to attract a load of over-ambitious, swashbuckling, limelight-craving radicals. | |
| They're going to be all over the airwaves. | |
| They're going to be hammering the phones at Downing Street. | |
| My response to that is – yes: good. | |
| I want our democracy to be a noisy, lively place – a place full of big characters each fighting proudly for their city. | |
| I want vibrant debate and well-known local faces the length and breadth of this country who aren't just waiting to get direction from London but who have their own vision of what their city can be. | |
| If you want to read more about the referendum in Bristol, my colleague Michael White filed this piece on the contest there three weeks ago. | |
| 3.43pm: Here's an afternoon reading list. | |
| • Iain Martin at the Telegraph says David Cameron's interview this morning should help to kill off Lords reform. | |
| The importance of what happened last week, with the Tory backbenches, even some loyalists, erupting in protest at the Clegg plan, should not be underestimated. There are some Tory MPs who are in favour of Lords reform, but many think it is a Coalition concession too far and are absolutely determined to stop it. An elected chamber would entrench the Lib Dems and give them a block of elected Peers that could hold all future governments to ransom. An MP usually very supportive of the government tells me: "The thing is dead." | |
| Smarter Labour people are also waking up to what the Clegg plan would mean: huge power for the Lib Dems. If you are an ambitious Labour MP do you want a future government of which you hope to be a part to be forever at the mercy of Shirley Williams, Paddy Ashdown, or even Lord Clegg? Er … no. | |
| • John Redwood on his blog writes about last week's 1922 committee meeting about Lords reform. | |
| It became clear that Conservative MPs do not want any Bill on Lords reform in the next Queen's speech. The Conservative party, like all the main parties, is divided over how to reform the Lords. Some want an all elected second chamber. Some want a hybrid chamber , with some elected and some selected, like the Bishops. Some want selected peers but wish to see reform of length of service, retirement dates, reduction in numbers and other changes. Some want it left alone, thinking it is fine as it is. | |
| However, last week consensus broke out. Practically all decided that a Bill on Lords reform this year would be wrong. At a time of major economic crisis in Euroland,with the need to battle down the deficit at home and complete major reforms of welfare and public service, there was no appetite to open a new front by taking on the Lords. All reported a complete lack of interest from constituents in this cause. Many thought the politicians would look even more out of touch if they went ahead with a Westminster issue at such a time. How would it look to be discussing new high pay and allowances for Senators, replacing much cheaper current arrangements, when the debate is meant to be about cutting public spending ... | |
| I hope the government is wise, and grasps that this is a topic which needs further discussion and thought. It might be a good idea to seek a consensus first on what the Lords is for, before moving to thinking about how to choose its members. Now is not the time to legislate. I have never seen the Conservative Parliamentary party so at variance with its front bench on a single issue. | |
| • Stephen Tall at Liberal Democrat Voice says the Tories ought to embrace a democratic Lords. | |
| There is an odd lack of self-confidence within the Tory party. For all their talk of the wish to build a Conservative majority at the next election, they seem perversely unwilling to try and do so by persuading a majority of the public to back conservatism at the ballot box. | |
| I suppose I should be grateful the Tories haven't yet grasped that their best hope of keeping Britain conservative is to offer the people true democracy. This country is, I believe, instinctively a small-c conservative nation, culturally and economically. It's a painful realisation for a liberal. However, I'm also a democrat who believes in the legitimacy that flows from decisions made by elected representatives. And I would rather win the liberal argument by getting the backing of a majority of the people than by thwarting their collective will. | |
| • Mark Gettleson at the Political Pulse says George Osborne's approval ratings have collapsed since the budget - particularly amonst people who voted Conservative in 2010. | |
| • Ben Mitchell at Speaker's Chair says Ed Miliband is doing just fine. Speaker's Chair is a new blog with contributions from across the political spectrum. | |
| 3.54pm: Nadine Dorries has described David Cameron and George Osborne as "two arrogant posh boys". (See 1.30pm.) The fact that she is saying this may not matter very much - she has got form for attacking Cameron in this way, and (putting it politely) she's perceived as a bit of a maverick - but her central charge is a serious one. Quite how serious is illustrated by some new research from YouGov. | |
| The academics Philip Cowley and Rosie Campbell have written it up here. They invented profiles for two candidates and then invited voters to say which one they would prefer. Then they asked the questions again, leaving all the details the same except for the notional salary earned by one of the candidates. The more he earnt, the less popular he was. | |
| The researchers then performed the same test telling respondents that one candidate made his money working for "a large multinational finance company" instead of running his own business. That made the fictional candidate ("John") even more unpopular. | |
| Here's the conclusion from Cowley and Campbell. | |
So money hurts – and a lot of money hurts a lot. It would be perfectly plausible for voters to have rewarded candidates for being financially successful – on the basis that someone who had succeeded for themselves might be exactly the sort of person you would want advocating for you. But there is no evidence of that at all. In each of the six pairs of candidates presented in this experiment, the public went for the candidate with the lower salary. As levels of income rise, the damage seems to be particularly severe when it comes to the candidate's perceived approachability (which may not be that much of a surprise), but the problem for the financially successful is there is no counter-balancing benefit in terms of perceived experience or effectiveness. | |
| 4.30pm: Here's an afternoon summary. • George Osborne has defended the government's decision to loan an extra £10bn to the IMF. In a Commons statement on the loan, he said that the government - and the Conservative party - were opposed to Britain turning its back on the rest of the world. | |
| In every single decade since the 1940s, the UK has been part of global agreements to increase the IMF's resources. Why has every post war British government done this? Because they recognised what we again recognise today. That Britain, as a proud, open, trading nation, has a huge national interest in a strong IMF as a force for stability and free markets ... | |
| We will not turn our back on the IMF, or turn our back on the world. That would be a betrayal of our country's interest and its identity, and at the same time a betrayal of my Party's history. | |
| But Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said Labour was opposed to the loan because the Eurozone countries were not contributing enough themselves. "It will further delay the decisive action we needed from eurozone leaders to kick-start growth and empower the European Central Bank to act," he said. Balls was undermined when Alistair Darling, the former Labour chancellor, said he supported the new loan. Osborne received little criticism from Tory MPs, perhaps because, as Michael Savage from the Times says, Tory MPs dislike agreeing with Balls even more than they dislike giving extra money to the IMF. • Evgeny Lebedev, chairman of the companies which own the Independent and the Evening Standard, has told the Leveson inquiry that politicians should pay less attention to the press. "Politicians over-estimate the influence of newspapers and it does make them more feeble," he said. "They pay too much attention to what the press say." | |
| • David Cameron has said that he would like to see "over-ambitious, swashbuckling, limelight-craving radicals" elected as city mayors. "I want our democracy to be a noisy, lively place – a place full of big characters each fighting proudly for their city," he explained in a speech in Bristol. (See 3.01pm.) | |
| That's it for today. Thanks for the comments. |